


the sun god and the soul

by Kirta



Category: The Cycle of Arawn - Edward W. Robertson
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, spoilers from white tree all the way through what lies beyond, way more characters than that but! that's most of the important ones, yknow. entirely too many characters just bc of the nature of this but whatever, you could call it soulmate au but like. soulmates by choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26563897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirta/pseuds/Kirta
Summary: Growing up in Mallon, they were always told that the strings were a gift from Barrod: the blessing of the sun god, tethers forged by the god himself to hold people together. Whether the smith had anything to do with it or not, there was no denying what they meant.
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting half-finished for like? a year?? but now i suddenly got the inspiration to finish it for some reason so! here we are lol

Growing up in Mallon, they were always told that the strings were a gift from Barrod: the blessing of the sun god, tethers forged by the god himself to hold people together. Dante wondered if maybe Barrod wasn’t very good at his job as he watched the braided cord between him and his father fade and fade and fade until it vanished into nothing. He asked the monk that was caring for him if that meant his father was dead, but the monk assured him that sometimes the strings just did that. It was the human part of it, he said. The gods can bind you together, but if you didn’t care enough to maintain it, the gift would be retracted. Dante nodded along and rubbed at the bare spot on his finger.

Years later, when he left the village behind for greater things, he watched what strings he had drop away like dead leaves. Most of them were gone already by the time he and Blays made it to Whetton. The monk’s was the last to go, three years after Dante’s departure. 

One night on the road Blays talked about death and the strings, the way he had watched his mother’s string crack the night she died. Dante didn’t ask many questions and eventually Blays fell silent. Dante played with the strings between him and Blays on the middle finger of his left hand. A black string sat on his finger like a ring and extended through the air to Blays, swaying in invisible currents. A greyish-blue string returned, tied around his own finger just above the black ring. Braided with both was a string of solid gold that seemed to give off its own light. The braid was warm and smooth, like metal left out in the afternoon sun. It was nice to have a string that bright.

\---

Blays sat in a prison cell in Whetton and waited for his own execution. He had followed the string to Dante in the crowd at the sentencing and wondered if he should say anything. (He didn’t, in the end.) He watched the strings now, the golden braid with its own aura of golden light that did nothing to illuminate the cell. The dark string from Dante grew darker before his eyes, black as the mass of darkness he had summoned in the alley, visible by its contrast to the simple shadows of the dark cell. Blays felt a tug on his finger. A weak smile broke across his face and he reached out and pulled twice on the string back to Dante. It was a little easier to sleep that night.

The day came and Blays followed their string into the crowd of eager vultures come to see the prisoners hang. He walked forward with his head high and knew by the pressure around his finger that the madness was beginning. He wasn’t disappointed- the mess was spectacular. Dante passing out and almost falling off their stolen horse was less spectacular, and Blays spent the next few days constantly looking back down at the string, certain it would break apart the same way his parents’ had, no matter what the old man said. Cally was probably crazy anyway. Blays’s own grey-blue string to Dante was as deeply colored as Dante’s black string to him.

\---

Cally watched Robert Hobble and the two boys ride away from his temple. It had been a temple of Arawn, once, and for a brief while it had been devoted to Silidus, before her priests had decided they didn’t like it very much and packed up. He looked down at his hands and caught a wisp-thin grey cord stretching after the kids. He snorted and shook his head at himself. It would fade in a few days, he figured, and it wasn’t strong enough to be visible to Dante.

Around his wrist a braided cord stretched south and east, to Collen. He was surprised it hadn't faded after all these years. It wasn't quite as bright as it used to be, but it was still there. He wondered if she was still the Keeper of the underground archives. Technically, he knew, it was a lifetime posting, but he was nothing if not an expert at breaking old rules, and the two of them had certainly spent enough time together for the skill to rub off.

\---

Robert Hobble watched the thin, colorless strings from him to Dante and Blays fade and he knew that within a week they would be gone. Such was the nature of relationships that formed this quickly (and in the case of Blays's string, that ended this sourly), especially those with kids. He silently wished them luck with their mad quest and pointed his horse in the opposite direction.

\---

Samarand’s fingers were adorned with strings like so many rings. There on her right hand was Larrimore, who remained true no matter the fluctuations in their bond, and on her left Olivander, disproportionately bright on his end, and four of the other Council members in varying intensities. More than half of her strings were unbraided, mostly for lack of reciprocation on her part. She wasn’t sure who many of them belonged to, spread throughout the city and beyond as they were, and she didn’t have the time to chase them down.

She had had a string to Callimandicus, once upon a time. Long since gone, of course, but sitting in his metaphorical seat now, she wondered how different things might be if the old man still helmed their order. It was purely an exercise in hypotheticals at this point, but still she wondered. There was a knock at her door.

\---

Olivander could only watch in horror as the strings broke like snapped bowstrings. Walter. Baxter. Vaksho. Last of them all, Samarand. Tarkon appeared at Olivander's shoulder.

"Something went wrong."

He knew that. The Council was dying. They should have reached Barden by now, which meant something in the process of freeing Arawn had gone terribly, terribly wrong, and Olivander had no idea _what_ had gone wrong because Samarand had left him behind to mind the Citadel. And now she was dead, with damn near every Council priest she had taken with her. 

It was days before they had any details. Soldiers in Narashtovik’s colors returning ahead of the main body of survivors brought with them news and rumor, and soon enough their stories were confirmed when Callimandicus rode into the city at the head of the remaining soldiers and priests with the boy who had stumbled upon the original Cycle at his heels.

Olivander knew the processes of their order as well as any of the Council. After counting their losses, he knew he was next in line for the station of High Priest. He could easily argue that he had more right to it than their exiled former leader- and one who had been presumed dead, despite the rumors of his survival (well-founded rumors, it seemed now). But the Council was already decimated, and a fight over the succession would only further weaken them, regardless of who won.

Olivander stepped away, and only regretted it a little.

\---

Somburr was new to the Council. He was hardly the only one, following the battle under Barden. He watched the city’s leadership piece itself back together and was careful not to get too close to any of them before he knew more about them. The last thing he needed was a tether pointing anyone on the other end straight to him. He had four bright strings and he didn’t intend to accrue any more: two orange-gold-brown ties to Sollar and Arin in Poloa, one to his grandfather, and one to the priest that had first explained the nether to an anxious child. 

It was nearly a year before he allowed any of his new strings to intensify beyond the dim gray that was visible only to him. To his mild surprise, Olivander’s was first. The man’s brusque professionalism made him easy to talk to and he had a good head for politics. _And unlike some people, he doesn’t take the network I’ve built for granted_ , Somburr thought acidly as Wint badgered him with questions about his informants. Somburr didn’t trust the younger councilman, and told Olivander as much later that day.

“You trust no one, though,” Olivander said, not looking up from a stack of paperwork.

“I trust _nearly_ no one,” Somburr corrected. “And if I distrust someone in particular enough to mention it, it’s noteworthy.”

“I assume you have people watching him, then?”

“Several.”

“Are you certain you just don’t like him?”

Somburr eyed Olivander. “Positive.”

Somburr never did find anything to support his distrust, and eventually it subsided. He never liked Wint, though, and Olivander just gave him an amused, knowing look when it came up.

\---

Mourn looked at the two humans, then back down the hill to where the Nine Pines were encamped, then up to Banning’s home. Vee most definitely hated him. He sighed.

“Fine. We’re beating up the mayor? Let’s go beat up the mayor.”

The shadow of a string encircled his finger, one stretching towards Dante and one to Blays.

\---

Lira pulled her hand closer to her chest and tried to focus on the strings tied around her fingers as the _Notus_ burned around her. Her mother and her sister were the brightest, and Lira took what comfort she could from the shining golden cords. The heat grew.

\---

Mourn had strings to the leaders of the Nine Pines, but they were faint to begin with and faded as his friendship with the humans grew. It had been Vee’s idea to leave them trapped in the tower while the rest of the clan attacked the mines, and that night was when Mourn’s string with her faded entirely. His string to Orlen remained, wisp-thin and so faint he wasn’t sure it was still there some nights. The string remained until just moments before Orlen’s death. His treachery had nearly cost them everything.

Mourn had retained only one string to the Nine Pines since the assault on Beckonridge, to his cousin Vern. He never expected them to want him back. Part of him wasn’t sure _he_ wanted to go back. He was quickly coming to love the Broken Herons as much as he ever had the clan of his birth. Then again, like the strings, norren leadership was passed around without regard for the person involved.

\---

Cally could only sigh when Dante returned to Narashtovik with two new friends. It was difficult enough to direct just him and Blays. Still, Cally could hope that either the girl or the norren would prove to be a voice of reason for the two of them. It was probably not a realistic expectation, if they had fallen in with Dante and Blays of all people, but he could hope. Cally saw them off in the early morning and wondered wistfully when there would be time to tell Dante even half the things he intended to. _One crisis at a time_ , he told himself, and continued with his day.

The door to his chambers opened unannounced. A stranger stood there, something short and thin hidden poorly along their arm. “Closed and private doors should be knocked upon first. Who are you?”

\---

Lira examined the fire-colored braid on her hand with great interest. The gold of the bond-braid reflected the light of the fire in the hearth as it swung from side to side as Blays danced with a stranger. Just below that ring was another braid, the brilliance of the gold making the gray cords seem even duller by comparison. If she squinted and turned her hand into the light, she imagined she could just make out hints of color. She caught Dante watching her and dropped her hand back to the table. Her mother had always said that the most rewarding relationships often took the longest to form. Lira supposed she had some basis for her opinion- Sheiran had known her father for nearly twenty years before Mara was even a possibility, much less Lira herself. Lira wasn't entirely sold on the idea, but she was willing to wait awhile and see.

\---

Too many of Hopp’s strings were broken in the siege of Dollendun. He wanted to tell Dante to stay, but he knew even without the borderline threats that it would be pointless. He didn’t miss the way Dante- and Blays too- kept looking back at their hands. More than the political crisis that was sure to ensue in the wake of the High Priest’s death, they had been close to Callimandicus. Hopp didn’t want to part with any more of his clan today, even these highly irregular human ones, but he knew he couldn’t and shouldn’t stop them. He kept careful watch on their strings braided around his pinkie for the next two months.

\---

Lira could hear Dante shouting after her but she ignored it. Her eyes were fixed on Cassinder. Her strings to Dante and Blays shone bright on her sword hand as she swung for Cassinder's neck.

The earth groaned beneath her feet. She followed her strings back, but Dante was the only one she saw. She smiled, and held tight to them as if they could stop her fall.

\---

It was very difficult to hide from someone when you were magically tethered to them. Blays’s cord to Dante had vanished in the week following the battle in Narashtovik, and the gold of the bond-braid with it. Dante’s string remained stubbornly tied to Blays’s finger, though, and every few days there would be a sharp tug, insistent, demanding his attention. Blays ignored it every time.

A month passed. Blays was drinking in a nameless tavern in a nameless town on the edge of the Norren Territories when the pull came again. He rolled his eyes and drank. When he lowered his drink, the black string pointed to the seat across from him. He sighed and didn’t look up.

“Leave me alone.”

“Blays, please, just let me-”

“Not interested. Go away.”

“Just come back long enough-”

“What, long enough for you to drop me down a pit too?” He took a vicious satisfaction in Dante’s violent flinch. Blays scoffed when he didn’t say anything else. “Just leave me alone, will you?” He raised his drink, found it empty, and didn’t quite storm out of the tavern. Dante didn’t follow him.

\---

As far as Nak knew, he was the first to develop a string without ever having seen the other person. Running the new loon hub had turned out to be quite a bit more interesting than he had expected, and every conversation with a norren was an experience. Kala was not the Twinstreams chief he had handed the loon over to, but she had been given charge of the loon and so Nak got to know her fairly well over the next few years. She wasn’t the only one, either, and it was a very strange feeling on Nak’s end to have cords stretching away to people he had never actually met.

\---

The last thing Cee expected when she took this job was to tie herself to any of these people. And yet, here she was, hiking through a desert she hadn’t even known existed three months ago with perhaps the strangest assortment of people she ever would have thought to put together. Two Council priests- and one of them the High Priest himself- seemed like overkill for a mission like this, but Cee liked these two better than most people she worked with, so she didn’t complain. At least, not about anything real.

Ast was too serious for her tastes, but she noticed a dim gray tie around her ankle that stretched his direction all the same. Lew was the little brother she never knew she wanted- it was just too much fun to mess with him, and he made it so easy. She made sure to glare away anyone in the cities that eyed him like he would be easy pickings, though, and didn’t bother to hide it. Dante was interesting- watching him read through the Weslean holy book, Cee thought he would be as happy hidden away in dusty archives as digging through the sand for Morrive’s hidden secrets. He knew a staggering number of things, but was surprisingly clueless in some areas. Somburr, distant as he kept himself, was easier for her to understand. She was nearly as cagey herself, and when they combed Ellan together, it was clear that he was very good at what he did.

When they finally left Weslee behind them for good, Cee’s hand was too bare, for all there were more strings than when she had first left Narashtovik with Dante. 

\---

Minn never learned bloodhunting. She didn’t need to- the green-green-gold told her with as much accuracy where Cal was being held. Dennie and her brother were tied to him themselves, but she was the only one with the power to do anything about the situation. They crossed the lake, all three of them watching their cords unblinkingly. Blays stood at her side, their own bond just verging on color. 

She very deliberately did not glance at her father’s home as it passed to their port side. What bond she had had with him had dissolved when he locked her up.

\---

There was a shadow of a grey string twined with gold where there had only been black for three years. It gave Dante hope for the future as he hid in the rain with Somburr and waited. There were shouts from the Minister’s palace. Blays stumbled out of the shadows and staggered forward. The braid between them shivered once and shattered into a hundred shards of golden light.

\---

Minn knew what it meant when her string to Blays shattered. She was less certain what it meant when it reformed thirty minutes later, though she had her suspicions. She climbed into the Fingers when Blays started tugging at the string and allowed him into the Pocket. 

\---

Olivander was getting rather tired of staying behind and watching other people die. There was an almost inaudible tinkling like that of shattered glass, and the saffron cord to Ast vanished. Another puff and Ulev’s blue vanished. Another, and- wasn’t that gray to Blays?

\---

After three months in Narashtovik, a faint gray-gray-gold braid hung between Minn and Dante. The colors never grew too bright, but the two of them stayed friends for years.


	2. Chapter 2

Larsin could only watch as Dante’s tie to him faded and faded. There was nothing he could do about it- for better or worse, he and Niles were stuck here now. He was stricken when his own string to his son vanished. He had long since accepted that Dante would move on, even before the string went, but he had always hoped his own would last for years.

Niles tried to distract him with life in Kandak, but Larsin never really got over it, even as the years went by in the Plagued Islands and he formed a new net of golden strings. Riddi helped him forget about what he had left behind in Mallon, and so did Winden, and when word reached the Islands of a Narashtovik resurgent under new leadership, he felt far more pride than guilt. 

His bond with Niles was bright and braided even as he fell into the Broken Valley.

\---

It was impossible to truly hide from the people you were tied to, and harder still to hide one half of a bond from the other. Twill had strings to much of her crew, and all Gladdic could do was increase the guard on her. She supposed he could execute her here and now, if he chose, but it ran rather counter to his intent to publicly discourage travel to the Plagued Islands. She felt Naran’s tug on her upper arm, and within days of their return to Bressel she was free again. She had had plenty of time to consider the matter of their new Gaskan friends- Narashtovik, she was sure they would correct her, not Gaskan for years now- in her cell. Despite- or in spite of- the Mallish priests’ decrees, she set the _Sword of the South_ on a course for the Islands once more.

\---

The distance broke the loons, but everyone agreed that their strings to Dante and Blays were still intact, and so no one in Narashtovik panicked _too_ much when they went silent.

\---

Riddi was the only one of the six who left that Winden was tied to. She heard from others in Kandak when they started to die and she clung to her sister’s string with a desperate, fading hope. Winden was not at all surprised when at last Riddi’s string snapped, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. 

Weeks later, Dante arrived in Kandak and Winden could find traces of her sister and father in his face. She consoled herself with the thought that at least Riddi’s death had not been in vain.

\---

The Mists were strange. Beyond, of course, the fact that they were the living trespassing in the afterlife, there were no strings. Blays didn’t think he had ever seen his hand so bare. Even when he was shadowalking his strings were still there, if distorted in both color and shape. It seemed the Mists were something altogether different.

\---

Dante’s string to Winden didn’t form until after the raid on the High Tower, though he was sure Blays’s had formed far earlier than that. The golden bond-braid was the only indication he had that she was still alive as Kandak fell into chaos under the Tauren attack.

\---

Twill brought the _Sword of the South_ into port at Averoy and they set out for Bressel in as great a disguise as they could manage. It didn’t take her long in the city to learn that there was trouble brewing in Collen Basin- more than average, that is. Twill led them to her family’s home in Dog’s Paw, Dante and Blays following because they did, in fact, owe Twill for her help in the Islands.

\---

The Keeper of the Reborn Shrine was bored. She sat in the darkness of her archives and wished she could see the sun again. Or the moon. Or the stars. Really, she would be happy with anything that wasn't a damn stone roof. Her strings were bright in the darkness of the shelves. There were only a few of them, now. The rest had died or faded away, and she had precious few opportunities to make new ones these days. Until just a few years ago, Cally's string had been steady around her wrist in silver, but it seemed even he was gone now.

A pale green string swung around her and she could hear one of her apprentices on the stairs. He brought her a new book and she sat down to read and decide where to file it.

\---

They had less time than they might have otherwise to discover the secrets of the Star-eaters, seeing the creatures for the first time as they were driven out of Collen with Cord and the Keeper.

Mariola Twill's death was not used to spur the Basin to revolt. Instead, she shouted the council into action herself, and when Blays and Cord returned to the occupied city, she was with them. 

\---

From the day of her father’s death to the beginning of her successes in Narashtovik, Raxa had only one string at a time wrapped around her ankle. As she grew into her place in the Order of the Alley, they began to sprout. Another cord tied itself to her foot with every one of her kids, and they all knew they need only tug twice on it and Raxa would come running.

She and Gaits had a string, too, sea blue and slate grey and gold. 

\---

Massacring the citizens of Collen in three hundred person increments was not a terribly viable plan when the rash of broken strings would immediately give the lie to the Mallish priests’ words. No, it would take something far more sudden. 

At first, it was barely noticeable as Gladdic and the soldiers under his command began to herd whole neighborhoods together, corralling them towards the center of the city. Twill was lucky- she escaped the sweep on the far side of the city. Cord and Blays were less so, and it took Blays at his most persuasive to convince Cord to slip away down a back alley. She was gone when he turned around, but he had no time to look for her. He looned Dante and hoped to all the gods he would be fast enough.

\---

The oversized Andrac was already wreaking havoc on the city when Dante made it back into the city. He followed their string to Blays, pale-faced in an alley several blocks away from the great square where the lesser Andrac had been set on the Colleners. Dante could smell the blood from here. 

The giant Star-eater didn't have the immensity of weeks' worth of traces bled in increments from Collen, but it was still big enough.

\---

Gladdic fled Collen, his plans undone by the nuisances from Narashtovik yet again, determined not to give them the satisfaction of catching him atop everything else. There were few enough strings decorating his left hand as it was, and as he watched the thin grey cord from Horstad fray into nothing. The diversion had worked, then. Gladdic continued on and did not count the string a loss.

\---

Raxa never considered until it was far too late that Gaits’ grey seemed less vibrant than it once had, or that it had worn away to barely a wisp by the time he cornered her in the bathtub.

Her kids, once she found them, were bound in such a way as to prevent them from reaching her string and calling for help. This Black Star was far too clever.

\---

_The Sword of the South_ pursued Gladdic south, despite Dante and Blays’s return to Narashtovik. Twill was well aware that she and her crew would be terribly overmatched in a toe-to-toe fight with the priest, but she was not about to let the man escape after what he had done to Collen. She still shuddered at the memory. Jona she left behind as a relay and trusted to their red cord as a failsafe she hoped would not be necessary. Only time would tell that much, though.

“Are we ready to sail, Mr. Naran?”

\---

Even with Volo’s help and the strings to guide them, it was no small matter to rescue Naran and Twill from the Bastion of Last Acts.

“We really have to stop meeting like this.”

\---

The Eiden Rane had no golden strings. If he once had, he had since forgotten them. All he had now were hair-thin lines of white tying him to those he had subjugated. 

\---

Despite Volo’s friendliness, Dante didn’t miss that there was no braid to their string until the chase into the Go Kaza. Later, after her injury at Gladdic’s hands, the string went slack but didn’t vanish entirely. Dante tried to find hope in that fact.

\---

Bek had no idea how Bel Ara would react- to seeing him again, to his companions, or to their news. There was no other choice, though, and he winced at his teacher’s questioning tug as they drew ever closer to the Silent Spires.

\---

Blays looked into the Odo Sein for the first time and the sight of it shocked him silent for two minutes straight. Ara watched him with a small smile, but he was too distracted to notice.

There were strings _everywhere_.

They spiderwebbed across the sky until the blue was blocked out entirely by gold, shining with their own brilliant light even in the shade where they were practicing. Blays looked over at Dante, who seemed to be staring into space to no practical end. Strings branched out from him, to Blays and Naran and Twill and Volo and more, stretching up and into the sky and away north, all of them visible to Blays. He reached out and plucked at one.

Dante shrieked and fell over.

“What in _all_ the hells was that?” he demanded over Ara’s laughter.

It took awhile, but eventually Dante got his payback. Blays convulsed in a full-body shiver as every hair on his body seemed to stand on end at once. 

“Ok, I do admit that was a terribly unpleasant experience.”

\---

Raxa’s string to Sorrowen formed with almost embarrassing speed, well before his own to her. The monk only looked between her and the string with a puzzled expression, but he never got up the nerve ask her about it.

\---

The Knights of Odo Sein had no shortage of traditions, conventions, and laws. Not touching another’s string was high up that list. Learning early on to filter out the overwhelming number of interpersonal bonds they were constantly aware of was another. They had been studying their art for centuries, but even so Ara had no idea what to make of this. Her string to Dante, dim but braided to common sight, ended in tatters six inches from her hand. The grey and gold of the bond shone unchanged, but something was clearly terribly wrong. She had her answer on what when Blays returned to the Spires without Dante.

\---

If Blays had thought to look, during the desperate chase after Dante-the-lich, he would have seen the very beginnings of a string to Gladdic. It was probably for the best that neither of them noticed until much later.

\---

There was one cord Dante had been watching with close attention even as he carried out the Eiden Rane’s commands. He knew Blays was coming after him, knew it with the same certainty he knew the nether or that the White Lich would inevitably overrun the entirety of the world. As Blays drew closer, the tattered cords on Dante’s hand reached for their other half, shards of gold condensing from the air and trying to reform the bond that the Golden Stream or whatever else powered the strings knew should be there.

\---

The string re-formed itself and Ara knew it had worked. She looked to the place where Bek’s string had been. Nothing came without cost.

\---

_“Leave him be.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because without him, you wouldn't be here.”_

It was somewhat more difficult to pretend he wasn’t tied to Gladdic at all after that.

\---

Raxa almost laughed at the idea of a faint bond-braid between her and Galand. Nothing quite like dramatic rescues to jumpstart something that might one day be called friendship.

\---

They passed through the Mists and into the Realm of Nine Kings, but their strings were still absent. Blays flexed his bare hand and wondered what was happening to their bodies.

\---

It was a shame they had no opportunity to meet Barrod in person in the Realm. Dante had a number of questions he would have liked to ask- but then again, that was true for just about anyone in this world. There seemed to be no strings here, and no Stream. He still wanted to know if Barrod had anything to do with them.

\---

Strings were formed and broken between thousands of people who might otherwise never have met during the weeks-long retreat across Mallon and formerly-Gaskan lands. Frayed string ends to those taken as lesser liches or as Blighted became commonplace.

\---

The first thing Blays did on their return to Rale was check his strings. It was a relief to see them again, though he had almost gotten used to their absence in the Realm. Winden’s relief to see them all awake again was almost palpable.

“I am not agreeing to any of your plans ever again,” she said, head in her hands. Blays laughed and hugged her.

\---

Gladdic had long since accepted that he had developed strings to his former enemies. He had never expected any of them to form a bond-braid- and from their faces, neither had they. If he was feeling exceptionally honest and kind (two things that rarely overlapped) he might even admit they had become very strange friends.

So it was that when the Lich undid the destruction of the Pridegate, trapping Dante and a number of others beyond, Gladdic experienced that very particular kind of terror born of acute, intense fear for someone you care about. 

A year ago, he would have laughed.

\---

There were too many missing bonds after the battle. Grievous losses no matter how you looked at it.

Ka’s arrival heralded more to come.

\---

Neve tumbled into Rale, still not at her best but determined to cause problems for Ka all the same. She shook her hand, adorned with two dim grey strings like rings on her middle finger. She looked up at the sky as if Carvahal might hear her and answer.

“What the hell is this?”


End file.
